Hill Strategies suspending arts research studies

For a good many years, Hill Strategies Research have been producing invaluable research and analysis about the arts in Canada and in various provinces and cities. These have been particularly useful to literary and cultural publications, but also to publishers in general. 

The analytic reports drilled down into government data and crunched the numbers to give real insights. Their series of  46 reports called Statistical Insights on the Arts series have been produced since Kelly Hill founded the organization in 2002. But the series is being discontinued.  

The funding consortium which made the work possible has decided to suspend funding for the reports in 2016/17 as well as the no-fee presentations based on the reports. It's a great shame and we'll all feel the loss.

There have been a few key factors in the suspension of this publication: 1) a one-year delay in the fielding of arts participation questions; 2) revisions to the Survey of Household Spending that have reduced the number of arts-relevant line items; and 3) other than for the report Educating Artists, we were not able to find new datasets that met the funding consortium’s needs over the short term.

The Arts Research Monitor is funded through a separate contract with a different funding consortium, and that research publication continues (having just started its 15th season).

As a result of this change, Hill Strategies has more time for special projects and would love to hear about any survey ideas or other arts research needs that you might wish to pursue. For inspiration, you may wish to check out our recent survey work and qualitative research related to the arts in B.C. and our report on Municipal Cultural Investment in Five Large Canadian Cities. We have recently conducted (or are in the process of conducting) surveys for Theatre Calgary, Arts Council Wood Buffalo, the Dancer Transition Resource Centre, and the McMaster Museum of Art.